


Bless These Wicked Hands

by unintentionalgenius



Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Adultery, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Extramarital Affairs, F/M, Major Character Death - Canonical
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 04:47:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4465970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unintentionalgenius/pseuds/unintentionalgenius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“To my boys:<br/>If you’re reading this, then there’s nothing left I can say to you. I hope you buried me between Fillip and Jackson; or, I hope Fillip’s still alive and kicking. Maybe he even gave this to you. I hope you aren’t hurting too bad, my babies. And now, since I’ve lived all my days on this earth and can’t be judged anymore, I can tell you this story. You don’t need your mom now, perfect and spotless and strong, and I couldn’t go to my grave knowing I’d spent my life lying to you. Now you can have all the facts, and more than that, I can try to explain to you why I did the things I did. You can decide for yourself if what I did was right. Promise me you’ll still love me in the end.”</p>
<p>Goes AU around the beginning of Season 5, but canon is fuzzy beginning around mid-season 4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rigatona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rigatona/gifts).



“ _To my boys: If you’re reading this, then there’s nothing left I can say to you. I hope you buried me between Fillip and Jackson; or, I hope Fillip’s still alive and kicking. Maybe he even gave this to you. I hope you aren’t hurting too bad, my babies. And now, since I’ve lived all my days on this earth and can’t be judged anymore, I can tell you this story. You don’t need your mom now, perfect and spotless and strong, and I couldn’t go to my grave knowing I’d spent my life lying to you. Now you can have all the facts, and more than that, I can try to explain to you why I did the things I did. You can decide for yourself if what I did was right. Promise me you’ll still love me in the end.”_

* * *

 

Maybe it was the first time he saw her, trailing Jackie into the clubhouse, barely more than a child - but no, she was just a kid, and him barely a man, but a man, still. He didn't look at her that way.

And maybe it was sometime between there, in the visits and dinners at the Teller place, watching how she and Gemma would butt heads, two sides of the same coin… but no - she was a kid, still in high school, and another man's crow on her back already.

Or maybe it was the day she wasn't there, and he loved her for being strong enough to leave, to know what was good for her and get out. And she stayed gone, and maybe he loved her for being strong enough to stay gone.

Maybe it was when she came back, and he knew she felt the pull of the club like he did, like they all did. But no - when she came back, she was Jackie's more than ever, and practically a stranger to boot. He had never had a friend who was a surgeon.

It might have come after, the day she showed up to sew up a brother without question. Or after again, when he found out whose hands had saved Abel. Or again, when losing Abel tormented her; or when he watched her assert her territory, proud and fierce, clawing and biting. Or maybe it was none of those, or all of them. Maybe it was some little moment, some combination of innocent touches and warm smiles that did him in. The contrast of her, all softness and steel. The way she said his name, the way she touched his hand… There was no point in trying; if it was one thing, it was everything.

* * *

She tells herself it wasn’t before she left; no, back then she only had eyes for Jackson. She only knew Chibs had been around because the years lined up; she couldn’t remember having ever seen his face, and his wasn’t a face you forgot.

By the time she barely stopped herself back-handing a crow eater who was dragging him off to a back room, it was too late. She was already in the midst of it, unaware it had ever begun. (She spent the rest of the night in Jackson's lap; he loved every minute of it, holding court like a king.) (Her attention was somewhere else, always just beyond that wall, just behind the door, trying to sort what she heard from what was imagined. She thought of reciting rosaries in her head, doing penance.)

Somewhere in between, then. When Jaxx left her, alone, pregnant, and his baby to take care of? She had spent enough time with Chibs, enough that he was Fillip in her head, by the time Jaxx got out. He had been there when Jaxx had not; held her hand during the dull dead hours of labor, before the epidural. Fetched and carried when she was the size of a house. Rode down to the convenience store at 2 AM for the exact brand of ice cream she was craving.

The time Jackson spent in Stockton changed him; the loss of Opie changed him. Maybe it was after, when the man she welcomed back wasn’t the man she had given the prison system. Maybe only then had her heart turned wayward, looking for someone else to hold it. Maybe. Maybe then she could sleep at night.

Before that? When they’d all blamed her, for Abel, and for Half-Sack? When she spent hours on her knees, scrubbing blood and begging for absolution, and the only friendly eyes she ever saw were his? When the club left for Belfast, was it his absence she mourned, not Jackson’s?

Or something less catastrophic - a mild afternoon at the clubhouse, pushing the babies in the swing. Had he strolled out, staring at the sky like a challenge? Had he hit her, then, like a lightening bolt to the chest? Did she chalk it up to the heat, the exertion, dehydration?

When she saw him stripped down in that hospital bed and had to confront the fragility of his life? When she sent them off, run after run, and the second name on her lips when she prayed was always _Telford_. Had that been a sign? Should she have stopped herself then? Maybe it was something else, some small, grateful moment after a long line of trauma, arms that promised “ _Everything will be alright_ ” even when it couldn’t possibly be true.

Maybe she set herself up for it, long ago. Maybe you don’t love a Teller boy without breaking his heart.


	2. Chapter 2

_“There’s a lot to tell you, my babies. If you wanted to truly understand, completely understand, you should read JT’s letters, but I don’t think we have them anymore. It might be better that way. That man caused more than his fair share of pain, even after he was gone._

_I’m not sure where to start this story, but for you, I’ll do my best. I moved to Charming young; this is my hometown. Your father and I - no Thomas, not Fil - were high school sweethearts…”_

* * *

 

It begins innocently enough.

 

She only meant to step out for a minute, for a breath of fresh air. Jax, she was fairly certain, would be able to breath underwater, but she was not quite that capable. She understood, on some level, why Thomas’s birthday merited a club affair, but part of her rebelled at the idea, insisting no one still learning to talk needed a birthday party with controlled substances involved. Of course, he and Abel were both long gone home with the sitter - one less possibility for escape. These parties had been too much in high school, but for Jax she could grin and bear it. Now, she was a mother of two, and any desire she had to party was subsumed by the desire for _sleep_. 

The flare of the cigarette falling from the sky startled her; she watched as steady fingers lit another, though she knew anyone up there had to be three sheets to the wind, that late at night. In the flare of the flick of the lighter, she recognized Chibs. She watched him smoke, sat on the picnic table for half a cigarette, living vicariously through him. Each inhale lit his face, dimly, washing it orange; the moments he toyed with the lighter in his hands did the rest. 

She hadn’t climbed to this part of the roof since she was 17, but if anyone was worth a sprained ankle, it was Chibs with that look on his face. He had to hear her coming; she nearly fell twice. But he never moved, didn’t flinch away when her palm made contact with his shoulder, her fingers gently wrapped around, coming to rest on his collarbone. She breathed, for a moment, and then sat next to him, one leg long, out in front of her, the outside leg pulled up; she rested her head on her knee, looked at him. He did her the favor of not looking back, let her drink him in until she was satisfied. He fidgeted with the lighter, a steady rhythm of flame and darkness, the faint smell of lighter fluid. The incessant _click - click - click_ continued while she watched. It never changed rhythms. It was as steady as his breathing, as easy as _one, two, three_ , _stop._ Without thinking, she darted her hand out, fixing it tight over his, ending the steady rhythm by spiteful impulse. He looked to her, for the first time, and nodded. Her fingers slid, one by one, off the lighter, but not from his hand. He brought the cigarette back up to his mouth and left it between his lips; his hand descended, slowly, _slowly_ pulling the lighter from the circle of their hands. It landed somewhere on the far side of him with a dull _click_ , his hand smothering the sound. Not looking back at her, he opened the hand she still held gently, as though unconsciously done. Palm to palm, his right hand faced her left hand, and he arranged his fingers to mirror hers. As they fell into place, he breathed a heavy sigh. She turned his palm flat, and then inhaled to speak. 

“You should talk to her," she said, fingers stroking the lines of his upturned palm.

"It's far away," he said, like that explained anything.

"Yeah, well, they invented phones for a reason." He stiffened under her touch. She could feel the muscles in his arm tense where they touched hers.

"What's it to ya?" He was not angry; closer to curious.

"She's your daughter. I'm a mother. I just know that if - if anything ever happened, and Thomas - I wouldn't be able to stand it. I don't know how you do."

"Ah," He grunted ambiguously. 

In the silence, she had no way to tell if she had gone too far or not far enough. He gave nothing away. She opened her mouth to speak again a hundred times, but stopped every one, just as the first word grew at the back of her throat. 

They sat for longer than she had ever known stillness at the clubhouse. They sat until the frenetic beating of her mind settled and stilled, until she found her mind wandering to other places, other people. They sat until she saw him draw the last cigarette from the package, right hand still held captive by her lazy palmistry. 

"The first time you put your hands on a human body and know that you can save or destroy... It's addictive.” She took a shuddering breath in, then held it, embarrassed. 

“I’m sure your hand’ll heal up fine,” he said, nodding at her. “You’re too fine of a surgeon to be put out o’comission like that.” 

“Is it that obvious?” she asked after a moment.

“Woman like you? Tara, it takes all of thirty seconds with you to realize you’re a healer born. It’s like telling a man he may never ride again - of course it’s all he’ll be thinkin’ about.” 

“I think about my boys, too,” she protested, halfheartedly. The battle was lost already anyway, and she knew what he meant, besides.

“Ten years gone and all it takes is Tiggy’s ass on the line to get you back here, up to your elbow’s in some biker’s blood,” he said, no hint of humor in his voice, but she couldn’t miss the crinkle at the edge of his eyes telling her it was only half serious.

“I never could say no to the Sons,” she sighed, resigned. 

There was a warning in his eyes when he answered, “Most people aren’t given the option.” 

They watch the moon move across the sky. Tara tried to estimate what time it was using the changing position. Chibs, the bastard, knew exactly what time it was, knew what she was doing, wouldn’t tell her. She didn’t look at him. Traced the moon’s dark edge against the midnight sky, counted the stars, counted the headlights as they passed the garage. Didn’t look at him. They sat, in silence, until she said, quiet, like praying,

“I wonder what would have happened… if I had met you first.” And it sits there, in the space between them, and no one looks directly at it. 

* * *

 

He gives her a pat on the back, maybe puts a hand on her shoulder when he passes by. They’re innocent enough, paternal even. The age difference between them is enough to discourage the ones who might otherwise jump to conclusions.

She doesn’t step aside when he has to pass between her and someone, something; she’s distracted, or doesn’t have the space to move. She loves the brief brush of contact, has to fight to keep down the blush in her cheeks. She’s pale as Snow White, and that’s how secrets get found out.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been an experiment in a writing style that is entirely foreign to me. Let me know what you think.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress, and honestly I'm posting this to get enough motivation to finish the damn thing. I always want comments, criticisms, and discussion - find me on tumblr @ the same name. Thanks for reading.


End file.
